Friend, OK, I'm going to keep this short and sweet.
It's as simple as this: Today is a new age, and in order to be successful as a rapper you are going to have to learn how to MARKET YOURSELF.
The landscape of the music industry has completed changed.
Your focus as an artist must evolve with the times or you'll simply get left behind.
Anything is possible but not PROBABLE.
If you're mindset is that you can just keep writing hot raps, honing your skills, and your music will just magically "end up in the right hands", then You're MINDSET is OUTDATED.
You need to shift your paradigm (mindset).
The new paradigm is: Keep writing hot raps, hone your skills, and BUILD YOUR WEB PRESENCE.
Yes...
Everybody knows that the internet is revolutionizing the way that we do everything.
Same thing with your career.
You have to build your online presence.
How do you do that? I'll give 3 steps to get you going: 1) Start a blog! Blogging is here to stay folks.
Start your own! Go to Blogspot.
com and click the button that says "Create your Blog Now".
Create a blog site that represents you.
Post up your favorite movies, favorite music, your favorite women, Whatever interests you.
And also, post up YOUR latest music on this blog as well! The key is, don't make your blog all about YOU.
Make it about your industry.
Contribute to the whole and the whole will contribute to YOU! 2) Start a twitter page: Twitter is the hottest new social networking site on the planet.
I don't see twitter disappearing anytime soon.
Start you own twitter page.
Put your picture up, write a hot 1 line bio, and start sharing yourself with the world! Contribute to twitter, conversate with people on the trending topics, and of course tweet links to YOUR new music that you just posted on your blog! The point is in stay consistently active and focus on giving.
Don't SPAM Diddy everyday trying to get a hand out.
Build your own Movement and then maybe one day Diddy will be contacting you.
3) Record Video: As you probably now know...
YouTube.
com is the 3rd most trafficked website on planet earth.
People love watching video.
That's why you need videos! If you don't already have one, invest in a decent digital camera and start shooting! Take video of you and your boys freestyling (Come hard, don't spit no garbage), Take video of you doing local shows, shoot video of you having a good time after the show, etc...
Just shoot whatever you're doing and put it up on YouTube.
What have you got to lose? These 3 ideas are just the stepping stone to building a web presence in this day and age.
I am just trying to stimulate your brain to shake you out of the old mindset of submitting demos and waiting for your dream to come true, to the new mindset MAKING YOUR DREAM COME TRUE.